


but we carry the weight

by angelheadedhipster



Category: Good Will Hunting (1997)
Genre: Anal Sex, Drunk Sex, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, M/M, handjobs, pornetry, surprise feelings about moving across the country, thanks aliza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-21 21:03:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster
Summary: “Come out and visit,” Will says, next time they’re on the phone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysteia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts).



> Happy yuletide, arysteia!! Thank you for a very fun and very thorough prompt, I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> Huge huge HUGE thanks to Aliza for beta-ing this at short notice, and shoutout to the coworker who walked by her and said “hard at work, huh!” while she was editing porn on her work computer.  
> Thank you as well to Cambridge Queen [hi_irashay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_irashay/pseuds/hi_irashay) for a CLUTCH Boston beta.  
> All remaining errors are my own!

There’s a lot Will likes about California.

The weather, first of all. It’s February now, and he can still wear short sleeves, which is fucking incredible. He likes being close to the ocean, too, though the ocean feels very different out here. He read up on the Pacific versus Atlantic ocean, in terms of currents, mineral content, variety and quantity of sea life, and then he’d gotten sidetracked reading some accounts of sea crossings, but it all ended up with the same basic conclusion. There was no real difference between the oceans, scientifically speaking, nothing to make them feel different. But they do.

Will likes his job, and he likes the swank one bedroom apartment he’s renting with all the money they’re shoving at him.

He likes California tacos, but he misses Boston food. Sandwiches from Rondo’s, the Jaegerbombs they used to throw back before work, lobster rolls from a truck. He hasn’t had clam chowder in months.

He misses some weird stuff about Boston, too - the screech of a T train as it pulls into the station. The salt air in Southie. Even some stuff about the changing of seasons, sort of - California didn’t have fall, doesn’t have snow. Each day is the same crystalline blue sky and wispy clouds as the one before it. Which is nice, he thinks, but he misses the shock of cold air in his lungs in the morning, the way the ground crackled under his feet as he stomped his boots to get warm.

And he misses Chuckie like he’s missing an arm.

He misses all the boys, and he misses Sean and he even misses the assholes he worked with, the girls they’d all see in bars, Morgan’s mom, the various douchebags they’d get into fights with. The cops who picked him up and called him by name.

Missing them feels normal, an ache he chose. _The art of losing isn’t hard to master_. It makes him feel sad, but nothing he can’t handle. It’s getting better.

Chuckie...missing Chuckie isn’t getting better. It feels like something he forgot to do, a place he’s supposed to be, always nagging at the back of his mind. He reads up on attachment and child development, tries to fit Erikson’s stages to his own life, to when he met Chuckie, but he can’t remember a lot of the childhood stuff right. There are gaps, and stuff his brain doesn’t let him remember. Anyway understanding the underpinnings of an emotion doesn’t necessarily help with the feelings themselves. He’s working on understanding that part.

He and Chuckie talk on the phone sometimes. They’re bad at it.

He calls Chuckie at his mom’s house, and they talk about Morgan and some asshole Billy got in a fight with last week. Chuckie asks about his job and Will doesn’t want to try to explain what he’s doing, so he says “It’s good.”

Will tells Chuckie that he and Skylar broke up, and Chuckie makes a considering noise into the phone. Will can hear him take a drag from the cigarette that’s definitely in his other hand, and gets a pang of a tricky emotion, misses sitting in that kitchen. He misses the smoke wafting towards the windows, mixing with a few generations of prior Sullivan cigarettes.

“Sucks, man,” Chuckie says, and Will’s relieved that Chuckie doesn’t ask for more than that. He doesn’t want to try to explain, and him and Chuckie don’t really talk about stuff like that.

He doesn’t really want to talk about the Skylar thing, anyway. Skylar was great, and he feels a mix of guilt and relief that it didn’t work out. She was so busy all the time. Med school was hard for her (for everyone, he corrects himself), and she didn’t have a lot of free time for him. She got annoyed when he corrected her work. Will was walking around in a brand new world, wide-eyed and excited about everything, whereas for her Stanford was just a new school in a long line of new schools.

Skylar had been Will’s ticket out, and he’ll probably always love her for that. But he’s here, now, and he’s still here even without her.

He still misses Chuckie. It makes him think.

 

Chuckie had always been a little weird about girls. About sex, in general. They all knew it, Will thought, but they’d never say anything to Chuckie about it. Chuckie talked about girls, but Will had never actually met a girl he’d fucked. Sometimes Chuckie went off alone at nights, and didn’t talk about it. Will is smart, but he didn’t have to be that smart to figure this one out.

So what if Chuckie’s a little queer. What he did was his business.

 

Will’s thinking about it now, is all.

 

He tries it with a boy he meets at a bar, far from the university. Turns out it’s easy, out here. He thinks about the way people back home talked about California, how all the men were fags and the women were plastic. _Half right,_ he thinks. _So far_.

It’s easier than picking up a girl, even, and Will doesn’t tell the guy that he’s never done this before. He’s read up on it, and he can’t imagine it’s that hard. Tons of dumb assholes do this every day.

The guy lets Will fuck him - asks for it, even. He’s taller than Will but thinner, and he doesn’t look like Chuckie at all.

 

“Come out and visit,” Will says, next time they’re on the phone.

Chuckie laughs, sort of, a cough in his throat. Will knows that means he’s surprised Chuckie.

“You come back here,” Chuckie says. _He-ah._ Will misses hearing that.

He doesn’t want to go back to Boston, though. Not yet. He can picture it - Chuckie will pick him up in his car, they’ll stop at Dunkin on the way home from the airport, get coffee and shoot the shit and by the time they’re drinking boilermakers at the bar he won’t be able to leave again. He did it once and it was hard enough the first time.

“Nah,” Will says, into the phone. “I got money now. I’ll fly you out here.”

 

It takes Chuckie a little while to talk to the foreman and get some days off, but he’s gonna come on the weekend of St Patrick’s Day.

Will goes to that bar again. This guy’s darker than him, built. He’s quiet, barely makes any sound even when he comes, seems to like it when Will holds him down.

On Friday he picks Chuckie up at the airport. Chuckie raises his eyebrows at the car, now painted and looking better on the outside than it does on the inside, before he hugs Will, slides his big hands down and across Will’s back. Will can’t figure out how he feels - wants to fold into himself and stop touching, wants to keep hugging Chuckie, wants to get in the car and drive off and leave Chuckie on the curb. It’s just so _much_.

“How was the flight?” Will says.

“What the fuck, ‘how was the flight,” Chuckie mutters, smiling, as he gets a cigarette out. “You ever been on a plane, California boy? What are you asking?”

Will grins, the corner of his mouth turning up. His hair flaps in the wind of the open car window as they head down the freeway towards town.

 

Obviously he has to take Chuckie out. It’s St. Pat’s, after all.

Will invites everyone he knows, and is surprised to realize it’s kind of a few people. He’s been in Palo Alto almost a year now, he has coworkers, Skylar’s friends, the roommates he first lived with, people he met at the batting cages. It’s not he same as the boys back home, but it’s something.

He thinks about inviting Skylar, but he doesn’t.

A bunch of people show up, a good crew. It’s fun - the bars in Palo Alto aren’t quite the same as where they used to go in Southie, obviously, but Will’s been here long enough to know which ones are stupid and which ones are their kinda place, baseball jerseys on the wall and beers with normal names. Will realizes he’s a little nervous - not sure how Chuckie’s gonna react to his friends, how they’ll react to Chuckie. Will’s hands keep jittering, he’s uncertain where to put them. Every time that happens he grabs a beer, or a shot, which means he’s well on his way to drunk by the time people even get there.

Which is fine, because everyone gets along and everyone’s having a good time. Chuckie’s quiet at first, taking things in, long pulls on his beer as he watches people move around him. Will finds himself checking up on him more than he probably needs to, and then he realizes he’s not checking, he’s just looking. Chuckie’s got stupid hair, he thinks, and watches Chuckie’s lips around the neck of his beer bottle, his fingers on the glass, the line of his neck as he swallows.

Will gets caught up talking to someone, and when he looks up, Chuckie’s talking to Vivek - about what, Will has no idea, but they’re both smiling. They look relaxed. Chuckie’s always been good at that, when he needs to be. If he doesn’t fit in he’ll fake it and more importantly, it won’t fucking bother him. Will walks by, brushes against Chuckie, slightly. Chuckie doesn’t look at him, but his fingers reach out, barely enough to notice, backs of his knuckles brushing against Will’s.

It’s a great night. Will is pretty fucking bombed, but he feels on top of the world. He did this. These are his people, his fucking code powering TIBCO software, his boy out from Boston to see him. He’s grinning and he feels a little magical.

It’s been a couple hours and they’re at one of the bars that’s open real late, them and a bunch of high-strung grad students in shiny clothes. Will may not be as shiny, maybe doesn’t belong here, but he doesn’t care. It’s his night.

They let you smoke in a bar like this, but he heads outside anyway, and Chuckie’s there, talking to Skylar’s old roommate’s ex boyfriend. Chuckie’s listening, careful and big-eyed like he gets sometimes when he’s paying attention. Chuckie’s eyes are bigger when it’s Will he’s listening to, though. Darker, too.

Will smokes his cigarette, feels loose and easy. His thoughts are a little scattered, running together. He thinks about Skylar, about diving into things. Skylar taught him that one - that you don’t always have to be sure, completely sure. You don’t to have all the data and prove the hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt. You can’t. With people, sometimes, you can be careless. You have to be, have to hope that the result is true even if you haven’t figured out every step of the proof to get there.

The thing is, you have to know what you want to do that.

The other guy goes inside, and then it’s just the two of them outside in the night air that’s not cold, not cold at all. California’s like that. Chuckie looks over at him, opens his mouth to say something, and Will drifts his body towards Chuckie’s and kisses him.

He just does it, without really thinking. It’s just - Chuckie’s just _there_.

It’s not a sexy kiss or a lingering one. Will’s not terribly coordinated right now. He just smashes his lips into Chuckie’s for a minute and then pulls away, swaying on his feet a bit.

Chuckie’s face is - Chuckie’s face looks completely different. He’s smiling, small and private, but he just looks so happy. His face has lit up, Will thinks. Lit up like the fucking sun.

“I’m gonna go back inside,” Will says.

“Ok,” says Chuckie, and he’s still smiling when he takes a drag on his cigarette, he looks so fucking happy. Will’s staring, he’s forgotten what he was going to do next. Chuckie’s looks so happy, sun face, and Will did that.

“I’m gonna say goodbye to people,” Will says, remembering his next step. “And then we’re gonna go home.”

Chuckie looks over quickly at that, meets Will’s eyes. He’s still smiling, softer now, as he raises an eyebrow, slow.

Will knows what he’s asking. “Yeah, ” he says, drawls it, and now he’s grinning, too.

 

It takes them too long to leave the bar, and then it takes them ages to get home. Will’s stumbling more than he realized. It hadn’t bothered him before, being sloppy, but now he has plans, he has places to _be_ , and his stupid legs aren’t working.

He’s leaning on Chuckie, and Chuckie throws an arm over his shoulder, holds him up. They’ve done that a thousand times before, a million times, but it feels different now. Chuckie’s fingers are soft and warm on Will’s skin where they drop over his collarbone, pressing in. Little motes of pressure, sensation Will’s body is incredibly aware of.

They make it home and Will unlocks his door and pulls Chuckie in and kisses him before the door has even closed. Chuckie laughs, low and deep in his throat, and Will can feel the vibrations in his mouth, in the lips that are around his.

Will’s mind is spinning, thinking about all the ways this could go, but also really focused on Chuckie’s lips, his fucking tongue. He kissed the guys from the bar, a little, but it felt kinda weird and too close, and he’d kept thinking about Skylar, so not much. He’s not thinking about Skylar now. It’s still a little weird to be kissing someone taller than him but he’s learning to like it. Chuckie has to bend his neck down to reach Will’s mouth and Will traces his fingers across the knobs of his spine, one by one.

Chuckie pulls back, slightly, his hands on Will’s hips. He’s smirking, because of course he fucking is, the asshole.

“Shut up,” WIll says, and starts to lean in to kiss Chuckie again, stumbles slightly and has to catch himself, hands flat against Chuckie’s chest.

“I didn’t say nothing, you drunk fuck,” Chuckie says. “You wanna take your coat off or what?”

Will rolls his eyes, drags his hands slowly down Chuckie’s chest, and kisses him again, just to prove the point.

It takes a couple minutes for him to figure out his coat, his shoes, where to put things, get himself to the bedroom. Will takes his shirt off and his jeans, and gives up on underwear as too difficult before falling into his bed. It’s not that big, but two people can fit if they’re willing to touch. For the first time, it occurs to him that if Chuckie hadn’t wanted this, there’s nowhere else for him to sleep. Will hadn’t thought about that at all.

Chuckie kisses him, this time, and that’s good too. It’s hard to tell who’s supposed to be in charge here, like he knows to do with girls, who makes the decisions. The kissing is good, though, sucking on Chuckie’s lips and Chuckie biting down on his jawline. Will’s getting harder, and he knows how that works. Chuckie’s wearing a tank top and boxers, and Will sticks his hand down Chuckie's pants. He’s done that before, but not like this, not at all like this. Not with the gasp Chuckie lets out, the way he groans ‘fuck’. It’s hot as hell.

Will knows how to do this part, it’s easy. But he keeps getting distracted. Chuckie’s dick is different than his own - longer, sort of flatter, not circular round like his is. It feels different in his hand and then he has to bite at Chuckie’s collarbones since they are right in front of his face, and then Chuckie makes a laughing, gasping nose and Will has to kiss him again. Now he’s forgotten what his task is here, and then remembers Chuckie’s dick in his hand. Isn’t that exciting.

Chuckie’s not as drunk as he is, Will thinks, as Chuckie rolls them over, legs on either side of Will’s hips. It’s scary, for a minute - Will isn’t used to being the girl in this position, and Chuckie’s bigger than him, his arms feel huge around him. Will breathes in, and he’s not sure if its panic or arousal in that moment.

But Chuckie leans down and kisses him and it’s ok, it’s just - it’s just Chuckie.

Chuckie has an easier time with Will’s briefs, and then suddenly Chuckie’s hand is around Will’s dick, and _shit_. Chuckie’s hands are huge, callused and rough. Will could probably identify all those calluses, all the ways Chuckie’s hands got like that. Not in the dark, though, and not now.

Chuckie’s got his hands around both of their dicks now, and it’s kind of dry and a little rough but holy shit does it not matter. Chuckie kisses him again but Will can only really gasp into his mouth. A sound comes out of him that’s never heard himself make before.

Shit, _shit_ -

Will’s mouth is open as he comes, he thinks, but no sound comes out. _Fuck_ , that’s good.

He feels sloshy and exhausted once he comes back to himself, comes back to Chuckie’s hand still around his dick, jacking his own cock and staring down at where Will came all over his stomach.

“Chuckie,” Will says, and his voice is hoarse. Chuckie looks up, meets his eyes, and they’re dark and intense, staring right back at Will’s.

“Oh, fuck,” Chuckie says and then Will feels it, hot and wet splattering across his own abs. That’s new. He’s never had someone else’s come on him.

Chuckie lingers over him for a moment, propped up on one arm, his chest heaving. He’s still got his shirt on.

“Fuck, Will,” Chuckie says, and heaves himself off the bed.

Will blinks at the ceiling. It’s dark, he’s still drunk. He thinks he’s gonna pass out really soon. His brain is humming, thinking about refractory periods and oxytocin and a million other chemical reactions that don’t matter at the moment.

Chuckie comes back, tosses him a tissue before sitting on the bed. Will doesn’t super want to move but he’s getting sticky, so. Chuckie collapses back onto the bed with a huge sigh, lands on Will’s legs.

“Real nice,” Will says, half-heartedly wiping jizz off his stomach. “You’re a fucking gentleman.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Chuckie says. He shifts, and between the two of them they manage to get tissues to the floor and their bodies next to each other, pressed together on Will’s slightly too small bed.

Will grins at the ceiling, rolls over slightly so his shoulder is under Chuckie’s, makes himself more room.

“G’night, Chuckie,” he mumbles sleepily.

“Good night, asshole,” Chuckie says into his neck.

Wil’s asleep before he can think about anything at all.

 

They wake up hungover, and there’s still a bit of dried jizz on Will’s stomach. It’s fucking gross, and he expects to feel some sort of regret, or panic, but it’s not there. He just feels like he wants to brush his teeth, maybe shower, and like he’d really like to put some food in his stomach as soon as possible.

Will takes Chuckie to his favorite taco place, and they each get four and take them back to Will’s apartment. Chuckie had made a bit of a face at some of the weirder ingredients, but he inhales his just like Will does. Tacos, that’s another point in favor of California.

They’re sprawled on Will’s bed, after, halfheartedly looking over at the TV that’s playing college basketball, but mostly not doing anything at all. Will’s ankle is crossed over Chuckie’s leg, and Chuckie’s fingers are skittering up and down the inside of Will’s arm.

Chuckie shifts on the bed, moving slightly closer to Will, and Will’s breath catches, ever so slightly. He’s not sure what the play is now, the next morning, in the light of day, sober,.

His eyes run up and down Chuckie’s body. It’s strange to be able to look, to be allowed to. He’s not sure if he wanted to, in the past, and just, didn’t, or if something’s actually changed. Will read up on latency periods, late stage attraction, Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, but nobody fucking knows anything. He just has to guess.

He’s looking at Chuckie’s legs now, long and skinnier than they seem like they should be for how muscular his torso and arms are, when Chuckie shifts and Will looks towards his face. Chuckie’s staring back, and Will feels caught, caught staring. It’s not a bad feeling, though. Catching Chuckie’s eye - there’s nothing about that that isn’t familiar.

There’s a moment that hangs, suspended, before they’re moving towards each other, kissing, slow and languid. It feels like last night but also nothing like it. It’s slower now, less immediate urgency, but Will feels heat building, a gathering sensation, gradual but potent. _muscles better and nerves more,_ Will thinks.

Every moment feels incredibly present, like he’s aware of every molecule of their skin touching, but also like he’s far away, inside his own mind even as he’s completely in his body. He’s not sure when their clothes came off, exactly, only that now there’s more skin, and everything feels charged. Chuckie’s skin is warm and smooth against his, taut and tight. There’s a solidity to him that’s different than girls, a firmness to the flesh Will’s fingers sink into. Chuckie smells different than girls do, but it’s not a smell Will can identify. He smells like Chuckie, is all. Like home.

They’re sitting up now, sort of, Will leaning against the wall, his arms gripping Chuckie’s shoulders. Chuckie is twisted into him, kissing and pressing his whole body against Will’s. There’s so much skin, so much to touch and feel and press against and react to. Chuckie’s dick is hard against his hip.

Chuckie’s fingers run down Will’s back, grip his shoulder blades. Chuckie touches Will’s scars like they’re just part of him. They are - Chuckie knew Will before he got them, and knew him after. Chuckie’s seen them before.

Chuckie knew Will was fucked up, but at least Chuckie was honest about it. Chuckie had some personal experience with that kind of thing, too, not that they ever really talked about it. Chuckie had never tried to save him, Will thinks.

Kissing isn’t feeling like enough, even with all the ways they are touching. They’re grinding into each other now, knees digging into ribs and twisted in ways that would be awkward if they stopped to care about it. Will thinks about how this went last time, tries to think about what Chuckie might want but it’s hard to stay focused. His mind feels clouded over, lust and want and that incredible charge, the feeling of having this, of being this close.

Will’s fingers move down Chuckie’s back, over the swell of his ass, firm and round in his hand. Will dips a finger into the cleft of Chuckie’s ass, lower. It feels dangerous, like something he can’t undo, but he wants to, so badly.

“Can I?” Will asks, and presses with his finger, just enough to make it clear what what he’s asking.

“Fuck,” Chuckie says, and pulls his lips away from Will’s, backs up enough to look at Will’s face. Chuckie bites his bottom lip, already red and puffy from Will’s mouth on his. There’s a pause and WIll’s not sure what Chuckie’s looking for. Will doesn’t know what expression is on his own face, worries a little about what Chuckie sees. He can only imagine what his eyes are showing, thinks _All full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look._

“Yeah,” Chuckie says, finally. His voice is hoarse, hoarser than it was. “Yeah, I want…” He trails off but Will gets it, feels arousal build and spread throughout his body, hot and intense, from his dick to the tips of his fingers.

He thinks he should be nervous about this, but he’s not. It’s Chuckie.

“Wait, I have stuff,” Will says, and hops off the bed, goes to his desk.

“Do you, huh,” Chuckie says, his mouth a smirk. “Look at you.” It’s probably meant to be sarcastic, but it comes out sort of gentle.

Will finds what he’s looking for, comes back to the bed. Chuckie’s lying in it, head on the pillow, biting his lips as he stares down at Will setting between his legs. Will knows how this works, gets his fingers wet, feels Chuckie’s eyes on him.

“You know what you’re doing there, stud?” Chuckie says. His voice is teasing, but it still sounds rough, like he’s still turned on.

“Yeah,” Will says, and starts to circle Chuckie’s hole with his finger, concentrating.

“Yeah? How?” Chuckie asks, and Will doesn’t answer, starts to dip his finger inside. “What,” Chuckie asks, his voice ending on a bit of a gasp. “You read books about _this_?”

Will keeps his finger moving, slow but steady. “You know all those books the Nazis burned, back in the 1930s? You’ve seen the pictures. A lot of the stuff they burned, it was scientific texts about homosexuality, intersex people, transgender identities. Stuff that took people years to write about again.”

Chuckie arches into Will’s finger, and Will adds another, stroking long and careful, sees anatomy diagrams in his mind.

“So what you’re saying,” Chuckie says, and he’s breathless, a bit, but not breathless enough. “Is that you don’t know what you’re doing, cuz there were no books left. That’s gonna - oh, _Fuck_.”

Will grins, strokes over that spot with two fingers and watches Chuckie writhe and the redness of his mouth as it hangs open. “Yeah, I thought so,” he says.

Chuckie stops giving him shit after that, his eyes wide and his fingers clutching at the sheets. Chuckie moans as Will pushes his dick in, then bites his bottom lip again, as if he’s trying to hold back. Will doesn’t want him to be holding back but maybe it’s for the best because the feeling of being inside Chuckie is already so much, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t exploded or yelled or punched something already. It’s tight and hot, and the pressure on his dick feels like insane.

“If you don’t fucking _move_ ,” Chuckie says, and groans as Will pulls out, slightly.

“Yeah,” Will growls, and does.

He’s not sure how long he lasts - less time than he should, probably. He’s straining to keep his eyes open against the overwhelming sensations, knows his limbic system is working in overdrive to catalog and store every single fucking moment. The punched out breaths that Chuckie makes, the sweat beading on his skin, Will’s fingers digging into Chuckie’s hips, the jump and bunch of the muscles Chuckie’s abs. Chuckie’s dick is rock hard against his stomach, bouncing as Will fucks him, and Will can’t take his eyes away. It’s a complex bit of weight balancing to get his hand around Chuckie’s dick but he manages it and it’s worth it for the way Chuckie’s hips buck and thrust into his grip. Will’s fingers are still slick with lube, mixing with the pre-come that’s leaking out of the tip of Chuckie’s dick.

Chuckie groans something that might be words before he’s reaching out, dragging Will against him, pulling Will’s shoulders up and Will’s mouth towards his. Will’s not quite tall enough for this but it doesn’t fucking matter, he stretches and gets his mouth on Chuckie’s, kissing like it fucking matters.

Nothing about their positioning makes sense - Will’s hand is crushed onto Chuckie’s cock, smushed between their bodies. He’s still moving his hips, faster and sloppier. He’s got hair in his mouth - his or Chuckie’s, who knows. He can’t move his hand in any kind of rhythm, gasps against Chuckie’s mouth, his jawline. It’s all heat and sweat and build and Chuckie, Chuckie everywhere.

Will fucks in harder, faster, and he comes like that, his mouth on the tendons in Chuckie’s neck, his hand slack. He thinks he says something but he can’t know, can’t breathe for a minute. It feels like every muscle in his body tenses up and then relaxes, until he’s limp and panting on top of Chuckie.

“Having fun there?” Chuckie’s voice comes a few seconds later, and there’s no way he should be able to sound that fond and sarcastic at the same time that he sounds so desperate and aroused. “You’re crushing me, bro.”

“Give me second,” WIll says. He’s not sure he can feel his toes.

Chuckie squirms, and Will takes the hint. He props himself up on one hand, pulls out, and rolls slightly so he’s on his side, his legs tangled together with Chuckie’s. Will’s hand is still on Chuckie’s dick, never left it, and he doesn’t actually think this will take very long. Will kisses at Chuckie’s neck, jacks him fast and a tiny bit rough, and watches as the lines of Chuckie’s body get tenser.

“Fuck, Will, fuck, I-”

“Yeah?” Will says, barely recognizes the guttural voice that comes out of his mouth.

“I, I want, can you-” Chuckie’s barely talking, just breathing, loud gasps that make his shoulders quake. WIll slides his thumb across the slit of Chuckie’s dick and that’s it, Chuckie is coming, spurting all over Will’s hand, himself, the bed.

“Fuck man,” Will says. He can’t stop grinning, kisses Chuckie’s lips.

 

They clean themselves up and Will grabs his pack of cigarettes, passes one to Chuckie. He tries not to smoke in his bedroom, but, needs must.

They curl up against each other, WIll’s head on Chuckie’s chest, touching everywhere they can. It’s quiet, and lines keep running through Will’s head. _yes, yes, that's what I wanted, I always wanted, I always wanted, to return to the body where I was born._ He had read _some_ gay books.

“What the fuck are we gonna do about this?” Will asks, finally. He doesn’t want to ask but he has to know, has to be able to see a future.

“I”m not moving to California,” Chuckie responds, quick.

“I-”

“If you move back to Boston I’ll shoot your fucking head off,” Chuckie says, and takes a drag of his cigarette.

Will picks his head up, looks towards Chuckie’s face. “You’re gonna shoot me? Yeah, with what? You’re packing heat now?”

“I know people,” Chuckie replies, gesturing with his cigarette. “Hey, I know people. It’ll happen.”

Will laughs and puts his head back on Chuckie’s chest. “Ok. I won’t show my face in Southie. Ok.”

It’s quiet for another moment, the only sound their breathing, the small crackle of filter paper burning.

“Man, Morgan moved into the front seat so fast, that last day,” Chuckie says.

“What?” Will says.

“When I went to your house, and you weren’t there?” Chuckie breathes his cigarette in, looks up at the ceiling. “I walked out, told the boys you were gone. Morgan didn’t even let me finish the sentence before he was up in your seat.” He’s laughing by the end of the sentence, wry.

Will chuckles, pictures Morgan’s eager face. He curls into Chuckie a bit more.

“I knew I was part of the reason you stayed,” Chuckie says. He’s not looking at Will, not looking at anything. It sounds like he’s thought about this, like its coming from somewhere within him. “You had that winning lottery ticket, and you never really belonged with us. Always had something to prove, picking fights and arguments, always beating up people bigger than you. But you didn’t leave, and I know that was me.”

“I didn’t…” Will starts to say, but he’s not even sure if he’s true. Did he stay for Chuckie? “But it was you who made me leave, too.”

Chuckie sighs, and nods. “I was so happy when your house was empty that day, but it sucked, too. I didn’t know how much it was gonna suck.”

Will’s quiet. He watches his thoughts swirl, catalogues how he’s reacting, tries to think rationally about his own choices.

“Look - I’m glad you left. You did it,” Chuckie says. “You had to-”

Will cuts him off. “I needed out. Meaning out. Away from Southie, Boston, Massachusetts. I couldn’t - I couldn’t do it there, couldn’t take one of the professor’s jobs during the day and then come hang out with you guys at the bar. I had to get away from all of that just - out.”

“I get it,” Chuckie says. “I know. I’m glad you did. Just…” and he trails off, sounding almost mournful.

“Yeah,” Will says, “I know.”

Will’s cigarette is out, and he reaches to the night stand, stubs it out on the wood. He thinks about getting another one, but he doesn’t, stays there with his arm across Chuckie, turned into him.

“I think I’m gonna visit Boston in the summer,” Will says.

“Yeah?” Chuckie says. Will can tell without looking that Chuckie’s smiling, a little bit.

“Sean will be back by then, and y’know, I know he wants to see me.” He trusts Sean, and he thinks it will have been long enough by then that he’ll be able to leave again.

“Isn’t he in Europe, or something? How do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He writes me letters, sometimes,” Will says. “Tells me where he is, where’s he’s going. Gives me book recommendations, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” Chuckie says, and Will turns to look at him in time to see his lips turning up slowly into a shit-eating grin. Chuckie pokes him with the fingers of the hand not holding his mostly burnt cigarette. “You gonna write me letters, Hunting?”

Will catches Chuckie’s grin, feels his own lips start to curve in response, the way he always grins when Chuckie looks at him like that.

“I got a letter for ya right here, asshole,” Will says, and rolls onto Chuckie, holds down his shoulders as Chuckie laughs, leans down and kisses him.

_the weight, the weight we carry is love. Who can deny?_

Ginsberg, Will thinks as lets himself fall, presses more of his weight onto Chuckie, swipes his tongue across Chuckie’s grinning mouth. That crazy motherfucker knew his shit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol SURPRISE! The lovely [ arysteia's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts) comments spurred some THOUGHTS in me, and then I couldnt sleep on my flight and...here we are. This chapter is completely unnecessary to the overall 'plot' of this thing, such as it is - just one scene from Chuckie's POV. Enjoy, I suppose. A new year's (January 5th?) treat.
> 
> Thank you to [Viper3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viper3) for a quick cursory beta when I needed one!

Chuckie’s already forgotten this guy’s name - Matt, maybe? - but Chuckie’s pretty sure he’s queer. Maybe-Matt isn’t checking him out exactly, but it’s there. Chuckie thinks he could probably make it happen, if he was anywhere else in the world right now than at a bar in California and if Will fucking Hunting hadn’t been brushing against him, all gentle and careful, all fucking night.

There’s a part of Chuckie, buried deep and permanent inside him, that immediately panics at the idea of getting found out. This asshole’s not gonna tell anybody, and who would this guy tell, anyway. But it’s an old fear and he can’t necessarily shake it.

Chuckie’s run through what might happen so many times. He’s careful, mostly. He doesn’t want to get caught. His boys have his back, he knows that, but he doesn’t really want to have to test it. He likes to think that if someone asked him, straight up “do you fuck men?” (get fucked by men, his brain supplies, helpfully), he wouldn’t lie. But no one he knows has asked him, yet.

Billy wouldn’t say a fucking thing. Morgan wouldn’t get it, and he’d ask a lot of fucking stupid questions, and try to get his dumbass head around it and he’d end up being kind of supportive, somehow. It would probably be pretty funny if it was happening to someone else, and Chuckie knows Morgan would never fuck with him on purpose, but, it’s Morgan. Morgan would say something stupid to the wrong person, and that would be that.

Will, though. Chuckie’s not sure if Will knows. He’s not sure what Will would do if he knew, or what he has done. Before coming out to California he would have said Will didn’t know, and wouldn’t do anything but now...now he’s not so sure.

Chuckie knows Will better than anyone in the world. He knows Will on a bone and blood and guts level, deep where it counts, but he also never fucking knows what Will is thinking, ever. Kid’s so smart, got a million things whizzing around in his brain, and Chuckie knows he can’t keep up, he doesn't try. But sometimes Will will do shit, crazy shit that doesn’t makes sense, and Chuckie doesn’t know if it’s because Will is so smart Chuckie doesn’t get it or if Will is just being really fucking stupid. Are Will’s actions the result of thinking too much, or not thinking enough? Nobody knows.

Will is also really fucking hot. It’s just a fact, like the fact that he’s a genius. Chuckie thought his attraction was because Will was his friend, and they were so close, but he’s realized as he got older that Will’s just good looking. Chuckie’s never quite sure why Will doesn’t clean up with women - Will does all right but he could do better, Chuckie thinks. But Will’s always had his own fucking hangups. More of them, probably, with all that goes on in his head.

Will has to know about Chuckie, about where he goes when he goes off alone. What Chuckie does. Right? Will’s too smart not to know.

Matt or whatever is still talking and Chuckie had too many beers to be really paying attention when the door opens and Will comes out of the bar. Will stumbles a little bit - Chuckie can tell he’s pretty hammered. He’d been drinking all evening and Chuckie doesn’t want to find it cute when Will trips over his own feet, but he does, fuck it.

Will looks up at Chuckie, eyes big and open. He looks delighted - by the world, by the bar, his friends. By Chuckie, maybe. Will’s lips always look like they’d be really nice to kiss, which is something Chuckie has been trying to cope with for a really long time.

“Can I bum a cigarette?” Will asks.

Chuckie gives him one. Of course.

Chuckie tries to pay attention to the conversation, he’s having but it's tough when Will is right there next to him, shuffling his feet and listing slightly towards Chuckie. Chuckie watches the smoke from their cigarettes mix and mingle in the air. It’s so warm here.

“Great talking to you, man,” says Matt or whatever, and claps Chuckie on the shoulder.

“Uh, yeah,” says Chuckie.

“Catch you around,” the guy says, and heads back into the bar.

Chuckie’s squinting a bit at the smoke from his cigarette, thinking about whether he wants another beer, so he’s not even looking at Will when Will kisses him.

The first thing he thinks is how far Will has to stretch his neck up to catch Chuckie’s lips, and without thinking Chuckie folds into it, leans down towards Will, like he always does.

Then it catches up to him, that this is happening. It’s not a good kiss, really, Will’s drunk and its sloppy but, but - Chuckie has wanted this for so long. He never let himself think about it as a possibility, a thing he could actually have. He didn’t let himself think beyond how awesome it would be to kiss Will and it _is_.

It’s amazing. Chuckie feels like he should be worried about what this means, but he can’t think, can’t process anything except _oh my god oh my god_.

Will pulls back and Chuckie doesn’t know what happens next but he tells himself he doesn’t care. If nothing else happens, this is fine. This is great. He got this, more than he ever thought he’d get, and it’s enough. But all the stupid fantasies he’s had over the last ten years are rearing up in his head and he can’t control it. Will looks thrilled.

Chuckie is floating even as Will says something, but when Will says “we’re gonna go home,” with this _look_ in his eyes, Chuckie can’t help the eyebrow that goes up.

“Yeah,” Will says, and he grins. Chuckie grins back.

**Author's Note:**

> The italicized lines are from various poems (look we KNOW that Will Hunting reads poetry and we also know I am a sap). They are, in order:  
> [Elizabeth Browning](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art)  
> [e e cummings ](https://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/jillyb/i_like_my_body.htm)  
> [William Shakespeare](http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/75)  
> [Allen Ginsberg](http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/poetry2/ginsberg_allen.html#Ginsberg1) of course, who also gives this fic its title
> 
> Also, here are some [instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/sptguy33/p/BpgWsffB5xE/) [posts. ](https://www.instagram.com/p/BiHwOkvHTVa/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=113a5hiko47m4)


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